A Prairie Home Companion

Robert Altman directs this comedy about the last night of a long-running country and western radio programme and the characters who have kept it going over the years. Security man Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) is in reflective mood and his voice provides the narrative for the film. The station's owners have decided to axe the show and have sent in Axeman (Tommy Lee Jones) to put the nails in the coffin. While the production is in progress, under the dulcet tones of MC Garrison Keillor (who wrote the original radio show on which the film is based), an angel (Virginia Madsen), who has come for one of the cast, stalks the studio. Noir kind of takes a shine to her. The cast of country stars, and their reveries about the show's past, start to come out as the night goes on; among them singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly), sisters Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson (Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep), and Yolanda's maudlin, suicide-fixated daughter Lola (Lindsay Lohan). (Universal Pictures UK)